


Fairy lights make everything seem better

by cpt_winniethepooh



Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Family, Avengers Tower, Awesome Pepper Potts, Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, POV Pepper Potts, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 22:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpt_winniethepooh/pseuds/cpt_winniethepooh
Summary: Pepper doesn't always find the Christmas preparations pleasant, but Tony can help her see things in a different light.





	Fairy lights make everything seem better

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Pepperony Secret Santa/Gift Exchange for [@thissweetmoment](http://thissweetmoment.tumblr.com/)! I hope you like it and I'm sorry for the delay!

"So I'm thinking we should but about 200 of these for the common areas—"

"Tony, we're  _ not _ buying two hundred miniature Santas, let alone two hundred for the common areas only," Pepper replied without looking up — Tony had sent her the link of the toys earlier, but apparently he got too impatient when she didn't immediately stop doing her actual job.

"But they sing  _ Jingle Bells _ when somebody passes by!"

"That's  _ exactly _ why we're not buying any of them."

Tony sighed a long-suffering sigh, then began tapping away on his tablet. "I bet their sensors aren't even good enough, but I could improve..."

"Improve upon the roombas, one of them ate a pair of stockings yesterday," Pepper said.

"Which one? The glittery green? I told you that roomba likes shiny things—"

"My stockings, Tony, that I foolishly left on the ground," Pepper sighed too. "Now please and brainstorm with Bruce until I'm done with my emails."

She looked up after a moment of silence to find Tony pouting at her. 

"No," she stressed. "Go."

Anybody seeing Tony could've mistaken with his ptelutance with an actual 6-year-old, and Pepper smiled under her breath. 

 

"So what've you come up with?" Pepper asked that night as she stepped into the lab. 

Neither Tony nor Bruce replied; Dum-E, however, rolled up to her to ask for pets. She stroked his support strut, then made her way into the heart of the den that was, on some level, Tony's heart too. 

Bruce was in a lab coat and protective glasses, Tony in just his usual Black Sabbath T-shirt, both of them huddled over a set of test tubes with different substances in each: some glowing, some emitting a thick layer of steam, some bubbling.

"What... are those?" 

"Pep! Don't step into that!" Tony shouted as he turned and pointed at a big splash of something black and gooey that expanded and retracted into itself on the floor. "Dum-E! You were supposed to mop that up."

Dum-E waved a mop and whirred loudly.

"No, I don't want to hear your excuses, get back here and mop away. Chop-chop."

"What are you doing?" she asked again. She sidestepped the splash, patted Dum-E again, and placed a soft kiss to Tony. Tony drew her close, and held her with one arm as he leaned over the test tubes again.

"We're trying to invent a formula that can artificially simulate cold meteorological elements in warm environments—"

"We want to make snow," Bruce interrupted him with a tired, but content smile. "Inside."

"Oh." She should've seen it coming — but it was better than the singing Santas, so hey. She brushed a stray strand of hair from Tony's face. "And how's it going?" 

"Not very well," Bruce admitted.

"But only because you're too sceptical," Tony accused him immediately. "It's going to be wonderful — imagine snow falling from the ceiling! The perfect Christmas atmosphere!"

"As long as you don't  start a fire," Pepper said.

FRIDAY was watching out for them, she hoped, if they got too carried away. Which they would, she could just tell. 

"This isn't like the thing with the automated defence system," Tony grumbled. "And Dum-E can help with the fire extinguishers."

Pepper threw a sceptic glance at the bots way. Dum-E was using the wrong end of the mop to try to get the goo to move, the result of which was the goo covering more and more of the rod. 

"Come to bed sometime, you need sleep," she kissed Tony's temple. "And eat," she added towards Bruce before she left for her evening routine.

 

Snow never fell inside the Tower, and wouldn't, for a while, Tony begrudgingly admitted after about a week of tests. However, he managed to create something so acidic that it burned through thick layers of steel and concrete, and sent one of his Ferraris through three floors — Bruce took zero responsibility for that, and she was inclined to believe him. She bandaged Tony's wrist that got secondary burns when he tried to contain the damage, then ordered repairmen to help with the floors. 

"But we invented a substance that could help divers, making deep sea evacuations and underwater forensics safer and easier," Tony said quietly.

"I'm happy about that," she replied. "I just wish you didn't get hurt while doing so."

She pulled Tony close that night, undertaking the role of the big spoon, and covered the scars of the ARC reactor with her hand. The skin-warm, rough surface was familiar, and she felt both her own heartbeat and Tony's, syncing up with their breathing as they drifted to sleep.

She needed to feel that Tony was alive and well. 

 

She had a huge international conference scheduled up a week before Christmas: the biggest guns of the industry, and she would need to do a lot of work. Nothing could be out of place, because she'd end up on the front pages and lose money for the company — but she didn't want to leave Tony alone. December was always a hard time for him, no wonder that he channelled his anxieties into weirder and weirder inventions. 

"Hey, Peter," she greeted him when he answered the phone. "I was wondering if you wanted to come over to tinker with Tony at the weekend?" 

"Oh, hey, Miss Potts! I, um, sure, yeah."

"If you have something else, feel free to refuse, I know this is kind of last minute..." she could ask... yeah, that was the problem. Rhodey was with his family, and would only be back on Christmas Day. Barnes and Tony seemed to get on surprisingly well, but maybe this time of the year wasn't the best to test the limits of that relationship. Happy was here, yeah, but he could never help with the emotional support much. Bruce also got called away to a scientific think tank, and there was basically nobody else left.

She and Tony were the main, and sometimes the only support they had. 

"I can!" Peter interrupted her thoughts. "I just wasn't expecting— Mr. Stark said I could come over?"

"Well, I'm his fiancée and I say you can," she said. "I have to be honest, I'll be out of town and I don't want to leave him completely alone."

Maybe she was a bad person to put that on Peter's shoulders. But the kid seemed to be handling responsibilities well, so.

"Okay, yeah, of course I can do that," and he immediately sounded way more enthusiastic and determined than before. "Send me the details and I'll be there."

 

She even talked to Rhodey and Barnes, despite everything, just to make sure they'd check up on Tony regardless of anything, and good thing too: she barely had enough time to take her makeup off at the end of the day before she collapsed on the bed from exhaustion, let alone call Tony regularly.

On the jet on the way back she was worried about what state she'd find him in, but her fears were unfounded. Tony had dark circles under his eyes, but smiled at her warmly when she got out of the car, and handed her a ceramic mug full of steamy herbal tea. 

"I'm glad to have you back," he whispered when she hugged him.

"So am I," she whispered back, then proceeded to sleep for the next 14 hours. 

 

"The kid was over all Saturday and we made huge improvements on his suit," Tony proudly said when she was functional again. "And everybody else kept calling too, as I'm sure you know."

"I didn't want to leave you alone," Pepper admitted sheepishly. 

"Thank you," Tony said. "You absolutely didn’t have to and I would’ve been fine alone, you know, I’m a grown man and everything — even run my company that has my name on it for a while — but thank you."

And to show his gratitude, he gave her a foot massage that had her almost in tears from the pure bliss. 

 

Generally speaking Pepper handled stress better than the average person. She hadn't been Tony's assistant for years for nothing, and then she was running the world's most lucrative corporation at a time when it transitioned from its previous business practices to a completely new path, and on top of everything, she was dating Iron Man. She wasn't immune to shit hitting the fan, but she at least always expected it, on some level.

What she was absolutely horrible with was, however, handling Christmas shopping. Granted, she only had a remote family to consider, but still: the pressure of buying something personal and fitting to each niece and nephew, twice removed, was a  _ pain _ . The Avengers were more easy, at least, given that she actually spent time with them, but combined with how the end of the year had a lot of business partners' panties in a twist... she would've gladly hibernated through December like a bear, if she could've.

"...so I was thinking Monaco? Or never again?"

"Tony, I told you I'm working," she sighed into the phone.

"Yes, but this is a time-sensitive thing—"

"And so is me making sure Christmas doesn't cause any issues, so please excuse me," she said, much more icily than how she intended, and hang up. 

Just to spend the rest of the afternoon with guilt, of course.

She didn't even know what Tony wanted to do with Monaco.

It was almost midnight by the time she made her way to the bedroom, because after long phone calls and emails, she decided to order whatever was needed for her friends and family from Amazon and Etsy — and just as always, she vowed never to leave it to the last minute, but alas. 

Tony was tapping away on his tablet in his pajamas, and he offered a smoothie to Pepper when she crawled into bed.

"I'm sorry for distracting you," he said immediately.

"I'm sorry for snapping," Pepper sighed. "What was Monaco about?"

"I wanna give Barnes and Rogers a weekend getaway somewhere, but I could've asked Bruce instead of you — and I did, and he said it's a terrible idea, and now I'm sending them to Greece."

She leaned into his embrace and rested her head on his shoulder. "Good."

"How you doing?"

"I can't wait for it to be over," she sighed again. "Why is Christmas so hard?"

"Well, let me see. Neither of us have parents, only memories," Tony said softly. "And the end of the year is hard on everybody. You're doing amazing, though, I hope you know that."

"I sure don't feel like that."

"You save me every day by just being here," Tony kissed her forehead.

"I love you too," she said. "What have you been inventing?"

"A bag that's bigger on the inside— don't laugh, if Santa can do it..." 

 

Tony refrained from calling her during work for the remaining of the week, and she was more productive, but as a result she felt more alone than ever. She couldn't wait to get home to him at the end of each day, and it only got worse when a sudden mission came up and he was out and about, saving the world from genocide and animated Christmas Trees.

God. The sentences she never thought she's had to say. No wonder she wasn't too fond of the holidays.

 

Christmas Eve finally came, though, and brought a well-deserved break and grey, snow-less clouds. 

The Tower was fully decorated, but absent of any singing decor, at least. Mistletoes hang from the ceiling, greenery was wrapped around columns, small ornaments were hidden everywhere — Tony's aim was clearly to make a Winter Wonderland come true. She smiled fondly at the displayed snowglobes in the living room, but her smile vanished when Tony wasn't in bed.

Could he still be at the workshop?

She went back to the elevator and down, only to find Tony in the armor...

"Tony?"

"Pepper!" 

...the armor and a few feet of Christmas lights, for some reason.

"What..."

"I'm putting these up outside," Tony grinned, the face-plate still up. "Wanna help?"

"Now?" she looked outside. It was completely dark.

"Well, when else? When we can't see how they glow?"

"What even would I do to help?"

"We have enough armors, and you've been good with them lately," he said, which was true. She  _ was _ practicing, in case of an emergency, but she's never...

She had so many objections. Putting up Christmas lights on the outside of the Tower, in Iron Man armors, on Christmas Eve, in complete darkness.

But she's been so responsible all December, and if they couldn't do snow angels with Tony, they could do the next best thing.

"Why not," she grinned.

 

FRIDAY toned the visual input down in her helmet, just as usual: only the essentials were displayed, and she relied on the system and Tony to take care of the rest. The suit fit her nicely, since she was of a similar height to Tony, if a bit leaner, after all. 

Tony grabbed her hand and helped her levitate for a bit, until she got the hang of it again, and then she leaped off into nothing from the roof and did two gratuitous leaps around the building, and what a feeling it was. The dark city lights passed her in a blur, and even through the suit she felt the wind in her ear — no wonder Tony loved flying the way he did. She looked back, and Tony was right at her heel, a golden beam in the dark night.

"Told you it's like riding a bike," Tony said through the comms.

"You said no such thing," she replied, laughter palpable in her voice. "Okay, how do you want to do this?"

"The lights have these sort of electromagnetic handles — not real magnets, because they'd stick to the suit," Tony explained, and flew inside while she hoovered in place. "But they'll activate once you put them to the outer rails of the Tower."

"You got any patterns in mind?" 

"No, go wild, whatever you fancy."

He passed a huge load of lights to her, and she sank two feet under the weight — but she felt nothing, given that the suit took all the weight off of her shoulders.

"Okay, let's do this."

The suit had a pointed led flashlight on the helmet, so she saw what she was doing, and Tony was right: the moment she put the lights to the wall between windows, it stuck. And from then on, it was only a matter of arranging the cables evenly, but luckily she could fly away to check how things looked from a distance, then back again to correct them. 

"We should listen to music," she mused.

"FRIDAY, play the Christmas playlist — softly!"

The loud drum bass still almost gave her a heart attack, but it was below deafening, and she laughed at Tony's choice — of course he'd listen to heavy metal covers of traditional songs. Of course. But soon she found herself nodding along and coordinating her movements to the beat, not even paying attention to the passing of time until Tony spoke up again.

"Hey, I think this is the last batch of lights." 

She looked around in surprise: because of the dim lights, she only saw the part of her work that she was actually doing, and had no idea how much they'd actually covered. 

"Already?"

"Time flies when you're having fun," she could tell Tony was grinning. "Especially with geniuses like us."

She shook her head, then put up the last bit. The cables connected to each other, so all Tony needed to do was to plug the end in, and then...

The Tower lit up with fairy lights all over it. Most only ran in straight lines along the curve of the building, but some spelt out various things: a heart, antlers, candy canes all in bright, warm yellow. It stood out in the middle of the city, but not like a sore thumb, but like something that was meant to be there all along.

FRIDAY put Tony's face to the display. "This is wonderful," he said, eyes shining. "Thank you."

"Thank  _ you _ ," she replied.

She wanted to have fun of the more intimate kind as well, but they both basically fainted into bed the moment the suits were off, happy in each others' arms. Her last coherent thought was that at least they could begin Christmas Day with some celebratory sex, and really, what else could somebody ask for? 

 

Tony's Christmas Party was relatively plain, considering. Not that they needed the added blitz: the media'd been writing about nothing but the new decorations of the Tower, to Tony and Pepper's absolute joy. The Avengers, too, congratulated them on the results when they came over to celebrate the holiday together.

Peter brought a somewhat tense May with him, but she eased up in the face of Thor's overwhelming kindness. Clint brought his dog, and Peter and Bruce immediately began petting and feeding him, forgetting about the rest of the world. Bucky's homemade muffins were a success until Sam didn't arrive with his mom's, and from then on it was a contest of whose was the most popular — until Steve all of Bucky's just to placate him. Natasha, Wanda and Maria did each other's nails; or rather, Wanda did, with magic, to make them look otherworldly, and the others suggested themes and images to her. Tony drifted back to Pepper when Rhodey's conversation with Vision about video games became too much even for him.

Pepper looked at the people in the room, in ugly sweaters or santa hats, eggnogs in hand, and then to the huge and as of now untouched pile of presents underneath the tree. She drew Tony close to kiss him properly, under a strategically placed mistletoe.

Yeah, Christmas wasn't bad when she got to celebrate it with so amazing people. 

 

"So what's the plan for New Year's Eve?" she asked as she was taking her make-up off after a hot shower, her hair still curly from the steam. "Another party?"

"What? Um, well, actually," Tony came up to her and embraced her from behind, locking eyes with her in the mirror. "I know I said the diamond earrings were your present for Christmas, but..."

"Yes?" she asked, and it spoke volumes about their relationship that she wasn't dreading another one of Tony's antics. Whatever it was, he loved her and wanted to show her, even if he sometimes went the wrong way about it.

"I know you  _ love _ parties and can't wait to partake in another," he said, "but I actually booked us a trip for New Year's Eve. And Day, too."

"Oh?"

"To my place in Long Island."

Tony  _ did _ have a beach house there, Pepper remembered. Then again, where didn’t he? "Why Long Island?"

"Because nobody will think to look for us there, Long Island’s horrible," Tony said. "But there's multiple fireplaces we can curl up in front of. And we could have a quiet celebration, just you and me..."

"Since when do you do quiet?" she smiled and stroked his chin, but he grabbed her hand to kiss it.

"Since that's what we both want now," he replied, and Pepper turned and kissed him fully. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm once again terribly sorry for how late this fic is up, and as such I couldn't ask anybody to beta it for me :( I hope you still like it!
> 
> I couldn't resist putting Pepper into a suit; I just love the idea of Rescue so much. Also, Tony putting fairy lights all over the Tower is inspired by that fanart that features the same thing, but *curses at tumblr* since the tagging system is down, I can't find it to give proper credit :/


End file.
